Editor’s note: thank you for your support

TODAY IS our birthday; we were born on the same date. By we I mean The Yorkshire Post and, quite by serendipity, me.

It is a quirk of fate that, ever since I was asked if I would accept the invitation to become the 14th editor of this great paper five years ago, has somehow deepened the affinity and affection I have for Yorkshire’s National Newspaper.

I am acutely aware that any perceived kinship

I have for this 266-year-old institution will be dismissed by the cynics as a silly little romanticisation hewn from circumstance to satisfy my own ego, but I don’t care. Humour me.

As we together turn one year older, and so become one year more wise, this hopeless romantic would dearly love to share a few words with this thing that will forever be my friend, but more so yours.

I would ask this grand old stalwart of the greatest county of them all what it felt would prevail from the devastation this annus horribilis has caused.

What would emerge victorious from the paradox of the pandemic? Paradoxical because there is so much grief and fear. Families have lost loved ones – my own family is two people the poorer for coronavirus – and livelihoods. And yet we have seen the best of us: NHS and key workers sacrificing so much of themselves, grafting their socks off – day and night – to save lives whilst friends and families have moved heaven and earth to take care of each other.

We’ve shared smiles, waves and thumbs ups on our doorsteps with neighbours on Thursday nights, often accompanied by a cacophony of clanking pans and cries of ‘is everything alright in your house?’

I would ask my friend of the last five years what she would like for her birthday, and do you know what, I think I know what she would say. She, for that is how I imagine The Yorkshire Post – a maternal figure watching over the county – would say: “Don’t worry about me. I have everything I need. Look after the family. Make sure they’re all OK.”

Her family is her readers, and you matter to the birthday girl more than you know.

And so I ask that you, if you are able, pass the offer adjacent to a friend and ask them to support us. By doing so, you’ll be ensuring many happy returns of this day for years to come.